Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov awarded IBC2024 International Honour for Excellence

The award recognises the resolve and skill as a filmmaker demonstrated by Chernov in uncovering the unvarnished truth that he and his Associated Press (AP) team witnessed on the ground as they covered the siege of the Ukrainian city by Russian forces in early 2022. The award will be presented at the IBC Innovation Awards ceremony at 18.30 CEST on Sunday, 15 September at the RAI Amsterdam.

A multi-award-winning journalist and President of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPF), Chernov documented the siege in Mariupol as one of the last remaining international media representatives in the city. Video materials from his work became the basis of 20 Days in Mariupol, Chernov’s first feature film. Produced with the support of AP and the PBS investigative documentary series Frontline, the film offers a harrowing example of the importance of video in fighting back against news disinformation in an era of false reports and deep fakes.

Michael Crimp, IBC’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “People are at the heart of our industry, which exists to support those who want to speak to the world. In honouring Mstyslav Chernov with this year’s IHFE for his work as a war correspondent, video journalist and filmmaker, we are recognising the courage, creativity, skill and determination he has shown in capturing some of the most affecting stories we have seen in the last few years. At a time when it is critical to produce video that reveals the reality of conflicts around the world and challenges the fake news and disinformation being disseminated, Mstyslav and the teams he works with exemplify integrity and the best in our industry.”

Chernov has covered the Russian invasion in Ukraine, conflicts in Iraq, Syria, and Nagorno-Karabakh, and Afghanistan during the return of Taliban rule after the US withdrawal. In covering the siege of Mariupol, video of the conflict was periodically sent to the AP editorial office from the only place there was still an online connection – under the stairs near the crushed grocery store – but much of the footage Chernov shot could not be sent online and was carried out by the AP team though the humanitarian corridor. 20 Days in Mariupol draws on Chernov’s daily news dispatches and additional footage he shot to provide a vivid account of civilians caught in the siege and a window into what it’s like to report from a conflict zone.

Chernov and the team of journalists working with him – Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko, and Lori Hinnant – were awarded the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Public Service for their courageous reporting from the besieged city. The film itself – written, directed and narrated by Chernov – has received more than 20 awards, including the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature at this year’s Academy Awards, Best Documentary at the British Film and Television Academy (BAFTA) Awards, and the Audience Award for World Cinema Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023.

French team to be awarded Best Technical Paper for research on volumetric video

IBC also announces that a French team has been awarded the coveted Best Technical Paper for its work in the new and exciting area of Neural Radiance Fields. The selection of the winner was carried out by IBC’s international peer review panel of 20 media technology experts, who were looking for a paper that was highly novel, topical, analytical, entertaining, well-written and has the potential to make a significant impact on the media industry.

Joshua Maraval, Nicolas Ramin, and Lu Zhang are receiving the award, which will be presented at the IBC Innovation Awards ceremony, for their paper ‘Advancements in Radiance Field Techniques for Volumetric Video Generation: A Technical Overview’. The authors, who are from the Institut de Recherche Technologique, b<>com, and the Institut d’Electronique et des Technologies du numéRique, both near Rennes, were seeking to find an efficient solution to the complex problem of capturing and rendering volumetric video – a fully three-dimensional representation of a time-varying real-world scene that can be walked around and viewed at any angle and from any position. Many feel the complexity of this capturing task has been holding back the widespread creation of such VR-captured material.

Paul Entwistle, Chair of the IBC Technical Papers Committee and Peer Review Panel, said: “The review team unanimously agreed that this was an outstanding paper. It is an exceptionally well-written and a very readable introduction to this fascinating field.”

The Technical Papers Programme features original research on solutions to real-world problems faced by the international broadcast and digital media industry – delivered by a mix of industry professionals, academics, and R&D experts. The Best Technical Paper will be presented at the IBC Innovation Awards ceremony. It and the 23 other successful Technical Papers were chosen from 327 submissions and will be presented as part of the IBC2024 Conference from 13-16 September.